# The Love Triangle of Frank Sinatra, Howard Hughes and Ava Gardner

An episode of [Ridiculous Crime](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1608230191), 16 Dec 2025, 1 h 03 min.

Audio: https://podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/e73c998e-6e60-432f-8610-ae210140c5b1/0b4bcc39-7ba2-453f-aaac-ae510011dd80/10d23b5f-f263-4ef5-a8b5-b3b40143643a/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=3a4c50f5-ff69-4807-aa26-ae510011dd8e

Frank Sinatra and Ava Gardner had one of the great love affairs of the last century. But it was actually a love triangle that included the famously-reclusive Howard Hughes. It gets wilder than that –– their love rivalry lasted decades and involved the mafia and the CIA. In fact, the dynamic forever changed Las Vegas and even ended the Rat Pack Era. This one is a wild midcentury tale... and 100% criminally ridiculous! See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Ridiculous crime. It's a production of iHeartRadio.
[0:03] Speaker 2: And and the Way Elizabeth Saren. What are you doing?
[0:07] Speaker 3: I'm just sitting here in the studio, you know, feeling
[0:11] Speaker 3: like a rock star.
[0:12] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, with your headphones on and your spangly.
[0:15] Speaker 3: And a microphone.
[0:17] Speaker 2: Wow, where'd you get those other pants?
[0:21] Speaker 3: Your mom?
[0:22] Speaker 2: Oh, I got a question for you, Smarty. Do you
[0:28] Speaker 2: know what's ridiculous?
[0:29] Speaker 3: I do ridiculous?
[0:30] Speaker 2: Better not be mom.
[0:31] Speaker 3: This is your mom. Man, No, it's this is another
[0:35] Speaker 3: inner thread of ridiculously cool.
[0:38] Speaker 2: Oh that's cool.
[0:39] Speaker 3: I'm not going to give you a mashup.
[0:41] Speaker 2: I'm no, it's too late in the year for my birthdays.
[0:44] Speaker 2: About your Christmas resent.
[0:45] Speaker 3: Unless you're mashing up a rude dude with absolute hilarity
[0:50] Speaker 3: and genius.
[0:50] Speaker 2: Oh.
[0:51] Speaker 3: So this is Melanie Leslie all right on Instagram super
[0:55] Speaker 3: Model ten thirteen, which is the ten thirteen like a
[1:00] Speaker 3: reference to Chris Carter X Files production company just dawned
[1:03] Speaker 3: on me.
[1:03] Speaker 4: Probably not.
[1:05] Speaker 3: I just exposed myself as a super nerd anyway, any heo. Okay,
[1:11] Speaker 3: So the interns forwarded this to me, this screenshot of
[1:15] Speaker 3: a message from Melanie, and it reads as such, and
[1:21] Speaker 3: away we go. Elizabeth's lifestyle brand would be sol this
[1:27] Speaker 3: capital s lt hs because vowels aren't the thing right
[1:32] Speaker 3: now for new companies. Haven't fully worked out a backronym,
[1:35] Speaker 3: but I think something like slow Living, table home and
[1:38] Speaker 3: sleep Online. Content would include extensive reviews of television programs,
[1:45] Speaker 3: essays on exploration of furry lifestyle, book recommendations and writing props,
[1:50] Speaker 3: pictures of plants, links to bad fan art being sold
[1:54] Speaker 3: on Etsy, and guest editorials by the likes of Nick
[1:57] Speaker 3: Offerman and friends. There would also be a comic strip
[2:00] Speaker 3: called Dark Elizabeth and a backpage piece of fiction about
[2:03] Speaker 3: the happenings at Slot's strip. Club. Brand would sell home
[2:07] Speaker 3: leisure wear like fluffy robes, pajamas, and Menocre fashion selection
[2:13] Speaker 3: would include everything from the most basic wear to Golden
[2:16] Speaker 3: Girls style and push into a missus roper territory. Wow,
[2:20] Speaker 3: this is the impetus for this. Was you mentioned that
[2:24] Speaker 3: I should have a lifestyle brand when I was telling
[2:26] Speaker 3: you the story of Martha Stewart. I didn't think that
[2:29] Speaker 3: that was something that would work. Melanie has hit the
[2:33] Speaker 3: nail on the head. There's a hole in the market
[2:38] Speaker 3: and it needs to go the line. This is just
[2:44] Speaker 3: I was so tickled by this. It's so smart and
[2:46] Speaker 3: so funny, and I'm what's interesting too is that, Okay,
[2:51] Speaker 3: I had to start like a public personal Instagram account
[2:56] Speaker 3: just you know, full disclosure. I'm probably gonna have to
[2:59] Speaker 3: do ads on there at some point.
[3:02] Speaker 2: You know.
[3:02] Speaker 3: Advertisers love the rude dudes, and so whenever you guys
[3:06] Speaker 3: want their money, you guys get it anyway. So I
[3:11] Speaker 3: started it, but I was like, what are you going
[3:12] Speaker 3: to do? So I'm just putting stuff that I think
[3:14] Speaker 3: is cool or weird, and I feel like this is
[3:17] Speaker 3: gonna this is my roadmap because a lot of this
[3:20] Speaker 3: stuff is stuff I've been doing. I put fan art
[3:22] Speaker 3: up the other day.
[3:24] Speaker 2: Yeah, so Melanie absolutely nailed your whole.
[3:29] Speaker 3: Melanie is my manager, is what I'm trying to get at.
[3:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's smart money.
[3:33] Speaker 3: Yeah. So I'm Elizabeth Dutton Crime on Instagram. If you
[3:36] Speaker 3: want to get in on the ground floor of I'm
[3:40] Speaker 3: gonna have to put that in the bike.
[3:41] Speaker 2: Oh I follow you.
[3:43] Speaker 3: That's right, and I follow you mane.
[3:45] Speaker 2: Well, I made an account that was all photography public,
[3:49] Speaker 2: just to so I could comment on your stuff and
[3:51] Speaker 2: people could be like, oh, that's that Zerring that guy. Yeah,
[3:55] Speaker 2: have a private account, but that's just for like family.
[3:57] Speaker 3: Same personal you know, boudoir of photos of you, you know,
[4:04] Speaker 3: the candids that you don't know I take with the
[4:06] Speaker 3: security can.
[4:07] Speaker 2: You take because mine is also that. It's all like
[4:09] Speaker 2: bubble bath photography.
[4:10] Speaker 3: I know, I just we just have both wait until
[4:12] Speaker 3: you're doing your boudoir photos and then I take screen
[4:15] Speaker 3: caps from the hidden cameras it's placed throughout your house.
[4:19] Speaker 2: And shots through the window of the bathroom.
[4:22] Speaker 3: You don't like it, I've seen the flat, But that's
[4:24] Speaker 3: why it's a private That's why it's a private account.
[4:28] Speaker 3: Just me and Dave looking he creeps. Is ridiculous.
[4:36] Speaker 2: A going to certify that one.
[4:38] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[4:38] Speaker 2: Well, if you got a second, I've got something that's,
[4:41] Speaker 2: oh my goodness, ridiculous.
[4:43] Speaker 4: Oh yeah.
[4:45] Speaker 2: It's the love triangle of Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner and
[4:49] Speaker 2: Howard Hughes. Howard Hughes, I didn't see that. It's a
[4:53] Speaker 2: passionate affair of Elizabeth, or rather a set of affairs.
[4:57] Speaker 2: It's strange, it's ridiculous, it's criminal, and it even transforms
[5:01] Speaker 2: the city of Las Vegas. Also didn't know this fun fact.
[5:05] Speaker 2: You could say, it ends the rat pack era in
[5:07] Speaker 2: Las Vegas. Oh yeah, Elizabeth, this may be one of
[5:10] Speaker 2: the wildest stories I've ever found for you yet. This
[5:33] Speaker 2: is Ridiculous Crime, a podcast about absurd and outrageous capers, heights,
[5:38] Speaker 2: and cons. It's always ninety nine percent murder free and
[5:44] Speaker 2: one hundred percent ridiculous.
[5:46] Speaker 3: Ridiculous Elizabeth story.
[5:50] Speaker 2: As I told you, it features three mid century titans
[5:54] Speaker 2: of American culture and they are in this crazy love triangle.
[5:57] Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra, Ava Gardner, Howard and I've told you stories
[6:01] Speaker 2: about two of them, Sinatra and the kidnapping of his son, Sure,
[6:05] Speaker 2: and then Howard Hughes just sprinkled through some.
[6:07] Speaker 3: Episodes, Yeah, popped up in some of my stuff.
[6:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. But I think this is Ava Gardner's first
[6:11] Speaker 2: time on the show.
[6:12] Speaker 3: Welcome Eva.
[6:13] Speaker 2: So yeah, to now to set the stage, let's dip
[6:15] Speaker 2: back to nineteen forty nine, okay, and we'll start with
[6:19] Speaker 2: Frankie and Ava. They were both born in December behind you.
[6:23] Speaker 2: Sinatra was born on the twelfth, Ava Gardner was born
[6:25] Speaker 2: on the twenty fourth Christmas Eve, so this episode should
[6:28] Speaker 2: drop right between both of their birthdays. Consider a birthday surprise. Now,
[6:33] Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra. He started out in the era of swing music.
[6:35] Speaker 2: That's a singer. He'd do a tune or two before
[6:39] Speaker 2: like a big band backing him, okay, all right, And
[6:42] Speaker 2: then in forty three, during the war years, he goes
[6:45] Speaker 2: solo and old Blue Eyes becomes this overnight sensation as
[6:48] Speaker 2: a new type of star. Like long before there was
[6:51] Speaker 2: beatles Mania. The first mania literally was called Sinatra Mania.
[6:56] Speaker 2: That's where we get that portmanteuh yeah, well, I'm saying,
[7:02] Speaker 2: is the where we get the modern the repetition of Listomania.
[7:06] Speaker 2: So he's the forefather of it all, list.
[7:08] Speaker 3: Domino, Watergate of it all.
[7:10] Speaker 2: There you go, yeah, and this is the first time
[7:11] Speaker 2: someone uses it and they're like, hey, that really works. Yeah.
[7:15] Speaker 2: So as I said, yeah, Frank Sinatra, he's his crooner
[7:18] Speaker 2: for the Bobby socks ers. They were the star struck
[7:21] Speaker 2: teen girls who are Bobby Socks and in the forties
[7:24] Speaker 2: they would swoon at the side of him and mostly
[7:27] Speaker 2: the sound of him, and Sinatra was this artist. He's
[7:30] Speaker 2: actually the artist who showed the recording industry that teenagers
[7:34] Speaker 2: could be a huge market. Before him, recorded music was
[7:37] Speaker 2: always made for and sold to adults. He's the one.
[7:40] Speaker 2: He's like, wait a minute, he's teams of money. So
[7:43] Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra changes the recording industry right there, right, Also,
[7:46] Speaker 2: as I said, huge star now. Starting in forty three,
[7:49] Speaker 2: which then lasts for the next like say, five years,
[7:51] Speaker 2: Sinatra is the number one most popular singer in the
[7:54] Speaker 2: annual poll of a downbeat magazine, which is basically a
[7:57] Speaker 2: music publication like Rolling Stone back in the forties. So
[8:01] Speaker 2: forty six we get his first album, The Voice of
[8:04] Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra. Right did they sell immediately? They know what
[8:07] Speaker 2: his appeal is. They're like, it's the voice. So then
[8:11] Speaker 2: comes forty eight, Sinatra starts to slip. He goes down
[8:14] Speaker 2: to number four in the poll. No, yes, Elizabeth, oh god,
[8:17] Speaker 2: this is this is the start of a slide in
[8:20] Speaker 2: his fame. So by forty nine, the music critics they
[8:23] Speaker 2: turn on them. They're like, always going down, let's cut
[8:25] Speaker 2: him down. So they do. But what did he care
[8:27] Speaker 2: because he was about to meet Ava Gardner. Now in
[8:30] Speaker 2: nineteen forty nine, Frank Sinatra is still on top of
[8:32] Speaker 2: the world. He's thirty three years old, and at that
[8:35] Speaker 2: time Ava Gardner also a young star, and she's still
[8:38] Speaker 2: on the rise. She started her acting career in like
[8:40] Speaker 2: forty one. So after she signs his contract with MGM Boom,
[8:44] Speaker 2: she becomes a starlet. And during the war years she's
[8:46] Speaker 2: mostly nabbing small parts in films or trying to figure
[8:49] Speaker 2: out what her appeal is. And then in forty six
[8:51] Speaker 2: she starts with Burt Lancaster in the movie The Killers,
[8:54] Speaker 2: the Temingwoy story that's turned into a film. Yeah, Ava Gardner,
[8:59] Speaker 2: she plays the fem tal in that noir film. The
[9:02] Speaker 2: movie huge hit makes her a huge star, so now
[9:05] Speaker 2: she's the next big thing. So in forty nine she's
[9:08] Speaker 2: this starlet who's become a major star and she's just
[9:11] Speaker 2: twenty six years old. Twenty six, Yes, Sinatra was a
[9:15] Speaker 2: thirty three and forty.
[9:16] Speaker 3: Nine so too big of an age cap No.
[9:18] Speaker 2: No, he vets for most of the year because he
[9:20] Speaker 2: would be thirty four in December, and you know, anyway,
[9:22] Speaker 2: you get the point, so.
[9:24] Speaker 3: I'll allow it is what I'm saying.
[9:26] Speaker 2: So that same year, forty nine, the sensational singer in
[9:28] Speaker 2: the Hollywood Starlet they meet at a party in Palm Springs.
[9:33] Speaker 2: Both of them are invited by the host, legendary studio
[9:36] Speaker 2: head Daryl Lefzanak.
[9:38] Speaker 3: Oh okay, right, So God, what a party that.
[9:40] Speaker 2: Must keet you imagine. Yeah, So when they first see
[9:43] Speaker 2: each other, they flirt a bit, they hit it off,
[9:45] Speaker 2: the two young stars. Now Sinatra convinces Ava Gardner to
[9:48] Speaker 2: leave the party with him, which she, of course eagerly does.
[9:52] Speaker 2: Now Sinatra is married at the time, but apparently he
[9:56] Speaker 2: doesn't care about that little fact. He takes one look
[9:59] Speaker 2: at Ava gar Arder he forgets all about his marital valves.
[10:01] Speaker 2: Oh great, she's not married, but based on how she
[10:04] Speaker 2: acts later in her life, it probably wouldn't have mattered
[10:06] Speaker 2: to her.
[10:07] Speaker 3: Also, but she knew, she knew he was married.
[10:09] Speaker 2: Yeah, but he was like the marriage was on the rocks.
[10:11] Speaker 2: They were breaking up. He wanted to get a divorce,
[10:13] Speaker 2: but he's an Italian, he's a Catholic. He's like, I
[10:15] Speaker 2: can't get divorced. Until he eventually is like, okay, I'm
[10:17] Speaker 2: going to get a divorce, but at this point he doesn't. Anyway,
[10:21] Speaker 2: a drunk Sinatra drives him out into the dark of
[10:23] Speaker 2: the desert night because they are in this town, you know,
[10:28] Speaker 2: Palm Springs. Drive to Indio, which is about twenty miles
[10:31] Speaker 2: southeast of Palm Springs. It's now famous for hosting the
[10:34] Speaker 2: annual Coachella concert.
[10:36] Speaker 3: YEP, Okay, on that dark highway.
[10:38] Speaker 2: Yes, did they the dark Desert Highway.
[10:41] Speaker 3: Did they hit and kill a drifter at any point?
[10:43] Speaker 2: No, not that, not this one. Curious No, but Howard Hughes,
[10:47] Speaker 2: he did hit somebody and kill them, but it was
[10:50] Speaker 2: ruled a a negligent non homicide, not manslaughter. It was
[10:54] Speaker 2: the pedestrian's fault.
[10:55] Speaker 3: Well, no, the legal terminology. What he was actually charged
[10:59] Speaker 3: with was OOPSI day.
[11:00] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's really big under Studio Grand So at the time,
[11:05] Speaker 2: India is this sleepy farm town of about five thousand people,
[11:09] Speaker 2: and they'd just gotten water from like you know how
[11:11] Speaker 2: Southern California is changing their water. So now it's about
[11:13] Speaker 2: to be it's.
[11:15] Speaker 3: Basically forget it, Jake.
[11:16] Speaker 4: It's Chinatown pretty much exactly.
[11:18] Speaker 2: Yeah. So, since there isn't much to do in this
[11:20] Speaker 2: sleepy farm town, the young couple they park their car
[11:23] Speaker 2: and they like make out for a while. Totally. They're
[11:26] Speaker 2: swapping salider, enjoying some heavy petting.
[11:30] Speaker 3: It's just like one of them'sr one and canoodling. They're
[11:37] Speaker 3: like the beauty lady, Beauty, the best lady in the
[11:40] Speaker 3: tramp spaghetti thing.
[11:41] Speaker 2: That's canoodling.
[11:42] Speaker 3: Like, that's what canoodling means. Did you know that?
[11:45] Speaker 2: I did not know.
[11:46] Speaker 3: You share a piece of pasta.
[11:47] Speaker 2: Yeah, and then you get fit closer and closer with
[11:49] Speaker 2: your faces, and then.
[11:50] Speaker 3: You're animated, and then you melt together and the reel
[11:53] Speaker 3: of film melts. That's canoodling.
[11:57] Speaker 2: Now, I know.
[11:57] Speaker 3: Anytime you see something, anytime you see it in the
[12:00] Speaker 3: rags in the magazine, Elizabeth told me.
[12:03] Speaker 2: But that is kids, that's can noodling.
[12:06] Speaker 3: You can go tell all the kids on the playground
[12:08] Speaker 3: like I can tell you.
[12:09] Speaker 2: You imagine my time when I'm not I can.
[12:11] Speaker 3: Tell you hate kids. You want to know what first
[12:13] Speaker 3: base is? Second base can noodle?
[12:15] Speaker 2: You're trying to get locked up?
[12:18] Speaker 3: Yes, after ladies and gentlemen, you want to know what
[12:23] Speaker 3: he doesn't lord.
[12:26] Speaker 2: So after they grow bored and kissing noodling, they're like,
[12:30] Speaker 2: you know, and and all the heavy petting's done, pawing
[12:34] Speaker 2: at each other, they climb out of Sinatra's car. Now,
[12:36] Speaker 2: being the sort of man he was, Sinatra has two
[12:38] Speaker 2: guns on him. Oh right, yeah, so.
[12:41] Speaker 3: That's that's like for real guns, not like not like
[12:45] Speaker 3: are fake guns or like, you know, you're not just.
[12:48] Speaker 2: I'm not using a euphemism. So the two of them
[12:51] Speaker 2: they have like wow, that's what they call two guns Sinatra.
[12:55] Speaker 2: She did say later on. Ava Garda did say about
[12:58] Speaker 2: Sinatra that he babe only weigh one hundred nineteen pounds,
[13:01] Speaker 2: but nineteen pounds of him is all yeah.
[13:05] Speaker 3: So good.
[13:06] Speaker 4: Yes, no, people are crass.
[13:09] Speaker 2: I'm telling you, and my grandmother once I have a
[13:11] Speaker 2: gardener at the farmer's market in la when she's a
[13:13] Speaker 2: very little girl, and the thing that she noticed was
[13:15] Speaker 2: that she had dirt behind her ears, and she was like,
[13:17] Speaker 2: she's dirty. How we heard about dirty Gyeah apparently?
[13:22] Speaker 3: Anyway, I want to know more.
[13:24] Speaker 2: The two of them have a good old time firing
[13:26] Speaker 2: these guns off into the desert darkness. But it's it's
[13:29] Speaker 2: a little farm town.
[13:30] Speaker 3: They hit a drifter.
[13:31] Speaker 2: No, what's with the drifter? They're not outside of town,
[13:35] Speaker 2: they are in town, so you'd Sinatra starts shooting out
[13:38] Speaker 2: some street lights, right, and then gun in hand, he
[13:40] Speaker 2: hands it to Ava. She decides to turn the firearm
[13:43] Speaker 2: on a storefront and she shoots out the window of
[13:46] Speaker 2: the local hardware store. What yes, I told you there
[13:50] Speaker 2: they are two peas in a little weird pod. Oh yeah, exactly. No,
[13:55] Speaker 2: these two shameless miscreants. They think it's fun to hear
[13:58] Speaker 2: glass break from gunfire. Somebody in Indio does not agree
[14:02] Speaker 2: with them, so they think that that's illegal.
[14:04] Speaker 3: And like the poor hardware guy is working late, like
[14:08] Speaker 3: stocking the shelves. No, he was gone to close his
[14:12] Speaker 3: middle finger off his hands.
[14:13] Speaker 2: It's like one two am. It's the small hours of
[14:15] Speaker 2: the morning.
[14:17] Speaker 3: Rank sat business owners work late zero.
[14:20] Speaker 2: This is true.
[14:21] Speaker 3: You need to respect the small business owners of this country.
[14:24] Speaker 2: So they are once this drunken, laughing pair with their
[14:27] Speaker 2: guns firing all around like their Yosemite Sam. They get
[14:30] Speaker 2: busted by the cops, right, but now to keep their
[14:33] Speaker 2: arrest out of the papers, some folks from the studio
[14:35] Speaker 2: come out and they pay off the local cops to
[14:37] Speaker 2: keep it quiet. It works because if you check newspapers
[14:40] Speaker 2: dot com like I did for a mention of this arrest,
[14:43] Speaker 2: you will come up empty. Really anyway, when Abor Gardner
[14:47] Speaker 2: comes back.
[14:47] Speaker 3: Home, that's when studios were studios totally not trying to
[14:51] Speaker 3: buy each other up and make Casablanca into a sequel.
[14:53] Speaker 2: No buy off local cops.
[14:54] Speaker 3: They were, Yes, they were pick to paying off.
[14:58] Speaker 2: It should be justice to be perverted. So when Averagardner
[15:01] Speaker 2: comes back home the next day, her sister asked her
[15:03] Speaker 2: about her night out and how the party at Daryl
[15:05] Speaker 2: left Zantak's place. When and Ava Gardner tells her sister
[15:08] Speaker 2: she spent the night with Frank Sinatra and they had
[15:10] Speaker 2: a wonderful time together. This marks the start of what
[15:14] Speaker 2: will become one of the twentieth centuries great love affairs. Yeah. Now, meanwhile,
[15:18] Speaker 2: there's the third angle in this love triangle. His name
[15:22] Speaker 2: Howard Hughes. So in forty nine, Howard Hughes is forty
[15:25] Speaker 2: three years old. He's the oldest of the three most
[15:28] Speaker 2: of the year, just like Sinatra and Ava Gardner, because
[15:30] Speaker 2: he's also born in December. In fact, he shares the
[15:33] Speaker 2: same birthday as Ava Gardner, December twenty four, So this
[15:36] Speaker 2: is now a triple birthdays day.
[15:39] Speaker 3: Fraternal twins separated yet birth. Yes they are by a
[15:42] Speaker 3: few years.
[15:44] Speaker 2: Yes they are. The mom took a really long one.
[15:46] Speaker 3: It was like a double gestation.
[15:48] Speaker 2: Like a full almost the whole child.
[15:51] Speaker 3: Before he came out early and she was late.
[15:53] Speaker 2: More he graduated and then she was born finally I'm.
[15:57] Speaker 3: Done with her teeth when she came out, Yeah, and.
[15:59] Speaker 2: A full head of hair. So Howard Hughes, He's born
[16:01] Speaker 2: wealthy since his father owned the Hughes Tool Company, which
[16:05] Speaker 2: made its money selling parts for the booming oil industry
[16:09] Speaker 2: drills and yes, ratchets. So his father was brilliant and
[16:13] Speaker 2: his son brilliant just like the dad. And he's got
[16:15] Speaker 2: this mind that's keen to event new things. He's handy
[16:18] Speaker 2: with technology, and from an early age, like at age twelve,
[16:22] Speaker 2: he transforms one of his dad's steam powered engines and
[16:26] Speaker 2: he puts it on his bicycle and makes the first
[16:28] Speaker 2: motorized bicycle in Houston.
[16:30] Speaker 3: You're kid, just in Houston, not in the world.
[16:32] Speaker 2: Yeah, darn it because yeah anyway, So, at age nineteen
[16:35] Speaker 2: and nineteen twenty five, after both of his parents die
[16:37] Speaker 2: in very short succession, he inherits his father's fortune becomes
[16:41] Speaker 2: a boy millionaire. He immediately indulges in his two great
[16:45] Speaker 2: lifelong loves. He learns to fly an airplane, and then
[16:48] Speaker 2: he also produces his first film. Now, the film industry
[16:51] Speaker 2: is obviously in the silent era, but it's also just
[16:54] Speaker 2: starting to really pop off. So I'll leave aside his
[16:58] Speaker 2: success in aviation, because you can watch the movie The
[17:00] Speaker 2: Aviator if you want to see all that, right, and
[17:03] Speaker 2: you know it's a whole constant striving to make bigger,
[17:05] Speaker 2: faster airplanes. It's great, right, But we'll focus on the
[17:09] Speaker 2: film part of his time in Hollywood. So in twenty seven,
[17:12] Speaker 2: the third film he produces, wins the very first Academy
[17:15] Speaker 2: Award for the Best Director of a Comedy because back
[17:18] Speaker 2: then they had Best Director of a Comedy as opposed
[17:20] Speaker 2: to just Best Director. Yeah. Yeah, So just like that,
[17:23] Speaker 2: Howard Hughes becomes a rich and successful playboy in Hollywood
[17:27] Speaker 2: Man about town, right, So based on his age at
[17:29] Speaker 2: the time, this also means he's whining and dining young
[17:32] Speaker 2: starlits and over the US. For example, Howard Hughes dates
[17:36] Speaker 2: Catherine Hepburn, Joan Crawford, Betty Davis, Olivia de havilin Ginger Rogers,
[17:42] Speaker 2: Hetty Lamar, Gene Tierney. He also dates a young Yvonne
[17:46] Speaker 2: de Carlo, which if you don't recognize that name aka
[17:49] Speaker 2: the vampire mom on The Munsters, Yes, she was an
[17:53] Speaker 2: actress back of the day. So yeah, he's going around
[17:55] Speaker 2: town to going hey, who's that redhead? Who's that blonde?
[17:58] Speaker 2: He's hitting everything he can right. Skipping ahead to nineteen
[18:01] Speaker 2: forty eight, a year before Frank meets Ava, he takes
[18:04] Speaker 2: over Rko Pictures, which makes him a full fledged studio head. Yeah,
[18:08] Speaker 2: so Howard Hughes, you know, keep in mind, this is
[18:10] Speaker 2: about two years after he had a near fatal plane
[18:13] Speaker 2: crash where he slammed his experimental plane into a neighborhood
[18:16] Speaker 2: in Beverly Hills. Yeah, it's really well done in the aviator,
[18:19] Speaker 2: So check that out if you want to see what
[18:20] Speaker 2: it's like. Anyway, it's a terrible crash. Damn near kills him,
[18:23] Speaker 2: like I'm saying. He sustains third degree burns all over
[18:26] Speaker 2: his body. He breaks multiple ribs, he breaks his collar bone,
[18:29] Speaker 2: he collapses a lung. The crash was so like powerful
[18:33] Speaker 2: his heart switched sides in his chest.
[18:35] Speaker 3: You're kidding.
[18:35] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, So that plane crash one of many leaves
[18:38] Speaker 2: Howard Hughes is somewhat broken man. But the next year
[18:41] Speaker 2: he gets right back to work, climbs back into the cockpit,
[18:44] Speaker 2: flies on his herculean plane aka the Spruce Goose. Yeah flight, Okay, so.
[18:50] Speaker 3: Meanwill I think I've seen the aviator.
[18:51] Speaker 2: Oh you haven't. Oh, I think I'll show it to
[18:53] Speaker 2: you sometime. We come to early to work. Happens three hours.
[18:57] Speaker 2: You have to come really early.
[18:59] Speaker 4: Rely, they can do it, Okay, I think you'd enjoy it.
[19:02] Speaker 2: Meanwhile, at the same time, there's one starlet he's crushing
[19:04] Speaker 2: on super hard Ava Gardner. So she's also being wooded
[19:08] Speaker 2: by Sinatra at the same time, and she's also kind
[19:10] Speaker 2: of stringing both metalalong. Right. Yeah, So by nineteen fifty one,
[19:14] Speaker 2: Howard Hughes is now obsessed with her trouble for him,
[19:17] Speaker 2: she's now engaged to marry Frank Sinatra. So Howard Hughes
[19:21] Speaker 2: has her followed by private detectives just to see how
[19:24] Speaker 2: serious they are. Sure this marks the beginning of their
[19:27] Speaker 2: toxic love triangle.
[19:28] Speaker 3: Well, and you get someone who has that much money
[19:30] Speaker 3: and power, they're like, wow, why is this not happening?
[19:33] Speaker 3: Totally I want it to happen.
[19:35] Speaker 2: And on my timeline.
[19:36] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[19:36] Speaker 2: So this brings us stories. First crazy story. In two thousand,
[19:40] Speaker 2: the former pr man Jim Mahoney wrote a book called
[19:43] Speaker 2: Get Mahoney, a Hollywood Insider's memoir. Right, And in the pages, yeah,
[19:47] Speaker 2: he shared many stories of his time as a Hollywood fixer.
[19:50] Speaker 2: He was a pr agent for Clark Gable, Gary Cooper,
[19:53] Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra doing publicity for his book. He shared one
[19:56] Speaker 2: story of a time when Frank Sinatra tried to kill
[19:58] Speaker 2: Howard Hughes. What, yes, So let's take a break after
[20:03] Speaker 2: these messages. I will tell you what happened when Frank
[20:05] Speaker 2: Sinatra tried to kill Howard Hughes. Oh my god, Elizabeth,
[20:30] Speaker 2: you ready to get murderous? Well, obviously nothing happens, so yeah, exactly.
[20:39] Speaker 2: Apparently Howard Hughes did not care that Ava Gardner was
[20:43] Speaker 2: engaged to marry the now divorced Frank Sinatra, since he'd
[20:47] Speaker 2: been dating her before the two got engaged. And Howard Hughes, he's,
[20:50] Speaker 2: like I said, he's not ready to give up on
[20:52] Speaker 2: their romance. I guess he thought he could finesse her
[20:54] Speaker 2: away from Frank Sinata.
[20:55] Speaker 3: Had he ever been involved with her prior?
[20:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, he'd been like wooing her, romancing her. From what
[21:02] Speaker 2: I read, he had not. He had not betted her,
[21:06] Speaker 2: He had not known her in a biblical sense, but
[21:09] Speaker 2: he was trying real hard.
[21:11] Speaker 3: Did they share a noodle?
[21:12] Speaker 2: I cannot answer that question. But the pr man, mahoney,
[21:19] Speaker 2: he tells this story of like well, Sinatra told him
[21:22] Speaker 2: this story. So quote Eve and I weren't married yet,
[21:26] Speaker 2: but he knew, damn well we were together. She told
[21:28] Speaker 2: him to take a hike, but he wouldn't take no
[21:30] Speaker 2: for an answer. He got a little out of hand.
[21:32] Speaker 2: So one night I got a gun and went looking
[21:34] Speaker 2: for him. Oh yeah, According to the Hollywood Fixer, the
[21:38] Speaker 2: fuller story is quote, she was on the phone with
[21:41] Speaker 2: Frank telling him that Hughes was bothering her. Hughes was
[21:44] Speaker 2: a persistent son of him, and he wasn't taken no
[21:47] Speaker 2: for an answer. Frank hung up with Ava and he
[21:50] Speaker 2: was enraged. It was late at night, and he got
[21:53] Speaker 2: his gun and he said, I'm gonna go find Hughes,
[21:55] Speaker 2: and when I do, I'm gonna kill him. So, being
[21:58] Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra, we've already stabbed. Which she's going around with
[22:00] Speaker 2: two guns on a date, she better believe. It wasn't
[22:02] Speaker 2: hard for him to find a peace. So and he's
[22:04] Speaker 2: also a man known for his temper and for his passions.
[22:08] Speaker 2: So he does exactly that. He takes a loaded handgun
[22:11] Speaker 2: and he hits up the sunset strip he goes from
[22:13] Speaker 2: one night club to the next looking for Howard Hughes.
[22:16] Speaker 2: Can you imagine you're this doorman at a club on
[22:18] Speaker 2: Sunset Strip and here comes a heated Frank Sinatra, possibly
[22:20] Speaker 2: with a gun in his hand. Yeah, and he's like,
[22:22] Speaker 2: have you seen Howard Hughes.
[22:23] Speaker 3: I really like he's in the back. Head open the door.
[22:27] Speaker 2: Anyway. Sinatra never catches up to Howard Hughes, not that night.
[22:31] Speaker 2: Later that same year, nineteen fifty one, the couple does
[22:34] Speaker 2: get married, and at first it's a happy marriage. In fact,
[22:37] Speaker 2: later on in her autobiography, Ava calls Sinatra the love
[22:41] Speaker 2: of her life. No really, yeah, very sweet, right. However,
[22:44] Speaker 2: Howard Hughes continues to be a thorn in the side
[22:46] Speaker 2: of their love of thing.
[22:48] Speaker 3: When they were married.
[22:48] Speaker 2: Ooh, not Howard Hughes. So Frank Sinatra marries Ava Gardner
[22:53] Speaker 2: in fifty one. They were this glamorous couple. They're both attractive,
[22:56] Speaker 2: passionate people. They also had their many, very well publicized
[23:00] Speaker 2: in very public fights and.
[23:01] Speaker 3: Spout oh yeah and shitting it up together exactly.
[23:04] Speaker 2: And they're basically like a gangster couple and she's the
[23:07] Speaker 2: gangster mall and he's like so by the summer of
[23:11] Speaker 2: fifty three, though the married pair were now separated, did
[23:15] Speaker 2: not last long.
[23:16] Speaker 3: This marriage.
[23:17] Speaker 2: The very next year, in fifty four, Ava Gardner's already
[23:19] Speaker 2: dating a new guy, a Spanish matador.
[23:22] Speaker 3: Wait, a matador happens to be.
[23:24] Speaker 2: The son of a famous matador, and so he lives
[23:27] Speaker 2: this very glamorous mid century life of his own, like
[23:30] Speaker 2: he was friends with Pablo Picasso. Yeah wow yeah.
[23:33] Speaker 4: So in meanwhile she's like, I'm sorry, Howard, I'm with.
[23:37] Speaker 2: Pretty much. But meanwhile, Ava Gardner is still technically married
[23:41] Speaker 2: to Sinatra, and he refuses to give up on their
[23:44] Speaker 2: love affairs of them, No, it meant a lot to
[23:47] Speaker 2: both of them. They both considered the other basically the
[23:49] Speaker 2: love of their life.
[23:50] Speaker 3: Sure, but like you know, they weren't afraid of break
[23:54] Speaker 3: in marriage fouls.
[23:55] Speaker 2: No, no, there's that. So in fifty four, as they
[23:58] Speaker 2: draw closer to finalizing their divorce, Our Sinatra is trying
[24:01] Speaker 2: to still win her back. Trouble for him is, Howard
[24:04] Speaker 2: Hughes has never given up on his love for Ava Gardner.
[24:09] Speaker 2: You never stood a chance.
[24:11] Speaker 4: Ever.
[24:11] Speaker 2: In June fifty four, Frank Sinatra tries to reconcile with
[24:14] Speaker 2: Ava Gardner. He asked her to meet him in Lake Tahoe,
[24:17] Speaker 2: which is at the time where she's staying in this
[24:19] Speaker 2: lake front house in Lake Tahoe that belonged to You
[24:22] Speaker 2: guessed it, Howard Hughes. Oh, yeah, she's staying there to
[24:26] Speaker 2: establish her six week residency in Nevada because if you
[24:30] Speaker 2: do that, then she can secure a divorce under Nevada
[24:32] Speaker 2: law Sinatra. So yeah, now you better believe Howard Hughes
[24:35] Speaker 2: is only too happy to provide a safe refuge to
[24:38] Speaker 2: her so she can get free of Sinatra. He's friend zoned,
[24:41] Speaker 2: but basically so meanwhile, Frank Sinatra he's down in Las
[24:45] Speaker 2: Vegas where he's working at the Sands Casino. We'll get
[24:48] Speaker 2: into that more and later, but for now, just know
[24:51] Speaker 2: that that's where he is. So they're both in Nevada
[24:54] Speaker 2: on their way to getting divorced. Now, however, Frank, he
[24:57] Speaker 2: I said, refusing to give up on their marriage, and
[24:59] Speaker 2: so he's trying to win her back one last time,
[25:01] Speaker 2: and Howard Hughes ain't having it. So he's been trying,
[25:04] Speaker 2: as they said, for years, I mean years to wed
[25:07] Speaker 2: her and or bed Ava Gardner, and he's given her
[25:10] Speaker 2: his time his attention. He's given her luxurious gifts. I'm
[25:13] Speaker 2: talking for coats, expensive jewelry, brand new cars, just plying
[25:17] Speaker 2: her with gifts because he's Howard Hughes and he just
[25:20] Speaker 2: had it like that. He's like, what do I care?
[25:23] Speaker 2: But despite all of his money, he can't buy her love.
[25:27] Speaker 2: So what does he do? Well, Howard Hughes hires a
[25:29] Speaker 2: private detective to follow her around and let him know
[25:31] Speaker 2: what all she's doing and who all she's doing it with,
[25:34] Speaker 2: so he can find the perfect moment to strike when
[25:36] Speaker 2: she's down, when she's vulnerable, when she might be a
[25:39] Speaker 2: little more open to him.
[25:41] Speaker 4: Right so sick.
[25:43] Speaker 2: You might think he'd already missed his moment after she
[25:45] Speaker 2: agreed to marry Frank Sinatra, But his aviation career and
[25:48] Speaker 2: his multiple plane wrecks teach us. Howard Hughes don't give
[25:51] Speaker 2: up easily, so he sees their marriage it's just like
[25:54] Speaker 2: a minder delay, a speed bump on the road of love.
[25:57] Speaker 2: So in fifty four, with her marriage to Sinatra on
[25:59] Speaker 2: the rock, Howard Hughes has got this private dick shadowing her.
[26:02] Speaker 2: And not just any guy. This guy he hires to
[26:05] Speaker 2: run surveillance on ava Gardner is a cat named Robert
[26:07] Speaker 2: Mayhew and I'm not sure if you know that name,
[26:10] Speaker 2: but it ranked familiar to me. Why don't know that
[26:13] Speaker 2: he's a true spy. His name will later pop up
[26:15] Speaker 2: in Washington d C. Circles when he's part of the
[26:18] Speaker 2: CIA's efforts to assassinate Fidel Castro.
[26:21] Speaker 3: Eh, there it is, but.
[26:22] Speaker 2: That's all in the future. At the moment in fifty four,
[26:25] Speaker 2: he's on the case for Howard Hughes, which means he's
[26:27] Speaker 2: not only following Ava Gardner around, he's also bugged her
[26:30] Speaker 2: house in Lake Tahoe that Howard Hughes is loaned to her,
[26:33] Speaker 2: and thanks to the bugs, Howard Hughes can hear what
[26:35] Speaker 2: all she says and who else she's talking to on
[26:37] Speaker 2: the phone, and that Elizabeth is how Howard Hughes knows
[26:41] Speaker 2: Ava Gardner's considering possibly reconciling where there's soon to be
[26:45] Speaker 2: ex husband Frank Sinatra.
[26:46] Speaker 3: I feel like at this time, both in entertainment and
[26:49] Speaker 3: the culture, stalking was seen as like flattering and not terrifying.
[26:54] Speaker 2: You see why it showed up in rom coms the
[26:56] Speaker 2: decades later.
[26:57] Speaker 3: With this Oh this guy just he won't stop tell
[26:59] Speaker 3: my Grandpa wore me down. Yeah totally, yeah.
[27:03] Speaker 2: No, didn't mean no at the time, exactly. So Howard
[27:06] Speaker 2: Hughes knows he needs to prevent this meeting from going down.
[27:09] Speaker 2: So what happens? How does he do it? Well? Rather
[27:12] Speaker 2: than me tell you about it, Elizabeth, I'd like you
[27:14] Speaker 2: to close your eyes and I'd like you to picture it.
[27:24] Speaker 2: It's a summer afternoon in nineteen fifty four, and you, Elizabeth,
[27:28] Speaker 2: are at Lake Tahoe. Because you are Frank Sinatra's oversized egos.
[27:33] Speaker 2: This also means it's your idea for Frank to make
[27:36] Speaker 2: one more play to win back Ava Gardner. You are
[27:39] Speaker 2: why he's come to the house that she's staying at
[27:41] Speaker 2: on the lakefront. Of course you don't know that Howard
[27:44] Speaker 2: Hughes loaned it to her, but that's not important right now.
[27:48] Speaker 2: You and Frank have come to win back Ava. That's
[27:50] Speaker 2: all you're focused on. When Frank arrives at the house,
[27:53] Speaker 2: he knocks on the door and she opens it, and
[27:56] Speaker 2: he sees her, she sees him, and you swell with
[28:00] Speaker 2: romantic ardor she will be yours. You think you're sure
[28:04] Speaker 2: of it, and so astant as Frank tries to woo
[28:07] Speaker 2: his wife back. It's not easy, but the couple's connection
[28:10] Speaker 2: is strong, and against her better judgment, she listens. Eventually
[28:13] Speaker 2: she agrees to take a romantic boat ride with Frank
[28:16] Speaker 2: out on Lake Tahoe. You thrill as she and Frank
[28:20] Speaker 2: climb into the boat. It's one of those beautiful all
[28:22] Speaker 2: wooden danzies with the deep v and the inboard engine.
[28:26] Speaker 2: The boat purrs as it pulls away from the shore.
[28:29] Speaker 2: The wind is light, the sun is warm. It's a
[28:31] Speaker 2: beautiful day on Lake Tahoe, one perfect for lovers trying
[28:34] Speaker 2: to find a way back to one another. Except there's
[28:37] Speaker 2: a surprise waiting for them. You don't notice it, but
[28:40] Speaker 2: soon enough Frank does. There's a man following them in
[28:43] Speaker 2: a second boat. Although he's a good distance behind them,
[28:46] Speaker 2: it's clear that the man is following Frank and aba,
[28:49] Speaker 2: you hear Frank ask AbaF She knows who that is,
[28:53] Speaker 2: She says she can't possibly see him, not at this distance.
[28:56] Speaker 2: Being Frank Sinatra's ego, you begin to see red. Soon enough,
[29:00] Speaker 2: his anger takes over for you. You see Frank grip
[29:03] Speaker 2: the wheel and turn the boat hard. He accelerates right
[29:06] Speaker 2: back at that second boat. You think, great, idea. No
[29:09] Speaker 2: one treats Frank Sinatra like this. When the Private Dick
[29:13] Speaker 2: Robert Mayhew, the spy guy Howard Hughes pays to keep
[29:16] Speaker 2: tabs on Ava Gardner sees Frank Sinatra racing his boat
[29:19] Speaker 2: at him, he turns his boat. The roles have now reversed.
[29:23] Speaker 2: The pursuer has become the pursued. You goat on Sinatra,
[29:27] Speaker 2: encouraging him to push the throttle so he can catch
[29:30] Speaker 2: this man and beat him to a pulp. The Private
[29:33] Speaker 2: Dick is good and no stranger to a chase. He
[29:36] Speaker 2: opens up a throttle on his boat and races back
[29:38] Speaker 2: to shore. The second boat slides across the clear blue
[29:42] Speaker 2: waters of Lake Tahoe. It's an epic nautical chase. Unfortunately,
[29:46] Speaker 2: you see the mystery man's boat reach the sandy edge
[29:50] Speaker 2: of the shore. He beaches it, and the spy guy
[29:52] Speaker 2: leaps from the boat and runs into the surrounding woods.
[29:55] Speaker 2: There's no way Frank will catch him. Of course, that
[29:58] Speaker 2: doesn't stop him from He is donzie right to the
[30:01] Speaker 2: shore where he beaches it. There too, Frank Sinatra stares
[30:05] Speaker 2: impotently into the woods. He's lost sight of the mystery
[30:09] Speaker 2: man since you're his ego. You tell Frank that man's
[30:12] Speaker 2: a punk. He's lucky Frank didn't catch him. What you
[30:16] Speaker 2: don't tell Frank is that he just scared the hell
[30:19] Speaker 2: out of Ava Gardner, which is indeed what has happened.
[30:21] Speaker 2: When Frank turns to her, he sees her fear and
[30:24] Speaker 2: her recognition that she is over this toxic relationship. The
[30:28] Speaker 2: intended romantic boat trip has just confirmed for her that
[30:32] Speaker 2: she can no longer be missus Frank Sinatra. The romance
[30:36] Speaker 2: is over?
[30:38] Speaker 3: Why of her?
[30:39] Speaker 2: Right? Yeah? Once you see that moment. So there you
[30:42] Speaker 2: go the story of how Frank Sinatra fails to win
[30:44] Speaker 2: back Ava Gardner because of two key factors, one his
[30:47] Speaker 2: ego driven temper and two his relentless love rival Howard Hughes.
[30:52] Speaker 2: So the very next month, in July fifty four, Ava
[30:55] Speaker 2: Gardner is scheduled to go through with their divorce proceedings.
[30:58] Speaker 2: She's got her day in court, but being her, she
[31:01] Speaker 2: doesn't show up to court. She's a snow show and
[31:04] Speaker 2: they then remain married on paper. Yes, wow, but Elizabeth,
[31:09] Speaker 2: she has a very good reason not to show up
[31:11] Speaker 2: for her divorce.
[31:11] Speaker 3: She locked in Howard Hughes's basement.
[31:14] Speaker 2: No good, guess, So Sinatra still owes her a ton
[31:17] Speaker 2: of money. Papa Gardner is now a major Hollywood star,
[31:21] Speaker 2: and she has the money to lend, and Sinatra's yet
[31:24] Speaker 2: to pay her back, so she doesn't want to sever
[31:26] Speaker 2: their relationship before he pays off his debts. Interesting, okay,
[31:30] Speaker 2: So she puts it in her autobiography. He is the
[31:33] Speaker 2: great love of her life, but he's also a bit
[31:35] Speaker 2: of like a welchm So it was, as some would say,
[31:39] Speaker 2: a complicated relationship. Try as they might, they just no
[31:43] Speaker 2: longer fit together. So that's hard to deny. Now, Elizabeth,
[31:47] Speaker 2: you may be wondering why was Ava Gardner loaning Frank
[31:50] Speaker 2: Sinatra money? I mean, becau isn't he friends with the mafia?
[31:53] Speaker 2: Can't get money? Yeah, So it's a great question, Elizabeth.
[31:56] Speaker 2: By the way, I know, and I have answers for you. Yeah.
[31:58] Speaker 2: To answer that, we have to dive back into Sinatra's career,
[32:01] Speaker 2: the rise and the Fall and the rise again arc
[32:03] Speaker 2: of Sinatra, because you see, in the early fifties, Avergardner
[32:06] Speaker 2: star is on the rise, but Sinatra's career has experienced
[32:09] Speaker 2: a major setback. Now, I remember how I said Sinatra
[32:12] Speaker 2: was the king of the swing era. He's the heart
[32:14] Speaker 2: throb for all the Bobby Socksers, the focus of Sinatra mania. Yeah,
[32:18] Speaker 2: that was the nineteen forties. When the nineteen fifties roll around,
[32:21] Speaker 2: Sinatra suddenly old hat. He's a taste of the past.
[32:25] Speaker 2: He's a reminder of the war years, and people want
[32:27] Speaker 2: to move on. The world is a change in a
[32:29] Speaker 2: fast when the fifties hit the calendar.
[32:31] Speaker 3: They want Elvis, the Pulvis pretty much.
[32:33] Speaker 2: Yeah, they're getting into R and B. You know, they're
[32:35] Speaker 2: really just start. It's popping off. So none of this
[32:38] Speaker 2: is immediately apparent when Sinatra and aver Gardner first got
[32:41] Speaker 2: married in fifty one, but it quickly becomes self evident
[32:44] Speaker 2: as the months in the years march on. But that's
[32:47] Speaker 2: not all. Frank Sinatra also loses his voice for a while.
[32:51] Speaker 2: Really Yeah, that gives him a real scare because remember.
[32:54] Speaker 4: He is the voice, Yeah exactly.
[32:55] Speaker 2: So without his voice, who is he? What is he?
[32:58] Speaker 2: So he has this existential cre It gets real bad.
[33:02] Speaker 2: Now his voice does come back, but the temporary loss
[33:04] Speaker 2: makes him seem human and not some like heaven sent
[33:07] Speaker 2: singer with a once in a generation set of pipes,
[33:09] Speaker 2: right so by the end of fifty one, after he's
[33:12] Speaker 2: divorced his first wife and he marries Ava Gardner, his
[33:15] Speaker 2: next big wave of bad news arrives. Hollywood is done
[33:18] Speaker 2: with Sinatra, so is his label, Columbia Records. Basically, now
[33:22] Speaker 2: he can't get a job and so he has to
[33:24] Speaker 2: go elsewhere to find work. Where does he go? Las Vegas? Yeah,
[33:29] Speaker 2: in fifty one, Las Vegas is far from the sin
[33:31] Speaker 2: city we think of, and gambling is legal and it's
[33:33] Speaker 2: going down, but the people aren't yet coming. It's just
[33:36] Speaker 2: there's still this oasis in the desert, the casinos. They
[33:39] Speaker 2: need a draw to bring in the people. And Elizabeth
[33:42] Speaker 2: I mentioned him just a second ago. The rumors were
[33:44] Speaker 2: certainly true. The Mafia was the big power player in
[33:47] Speaker 2: early Vegas. Oh as you know you lived there. The
[33:51] Speaker 2: place was essentially founded by the mobster Bugsy Seagull. And
[33:55] Speaker 2: then the Chicago Outfit takes over the good news for Sinatras,
[33:58] Speaker 2: he's in good stead with Sam g Conna, who runs
[34:01] Speaker 2: the Chicago outfit. Yeah, so when Sinatra hits the skids
[34:03] Speaker 2: in Hollywood, the Mafia gives them a job in Vegas.
[34:06] Speaker 2: It's more like a lifeline. But all This is dramatized
[34:09] Speaker 2: in The Godfather with the Johnny Fontaine characters. I'd like
[34:12] Speaker 2: to see this, you know. So anyway, in September of
[34:15] Speaker 2: fifty one, Sinatra makes his Vegas debut at the Desert Inn. Meanwhile,
[34:20] Speaker 2: Seeing Somewhat of a has been his record label. As
[34:23] Speaker 2: I said, Columbia. They drop him in fifty two. But
[34:26] Speaker 2: in fifty two he's still married David Gardner, who's now
[34:28] Speaker 2: a major Hollywood star. This causes trouble in their marriage
[34:32] Speaker 2: because they are headed in opposite directions. She's married to
[34:35] Speaker 2: this has been yeah, and she's this rising star. Plus
[34:38] Speaker 2: Sinatra is a proud man. He can't stand that Ava's
[34:41] Speaker 2: career is hot and his is not sure. So this
[34:45] Speaker 2: is why Sinatra is forced to borrow money from his wife. Yeah, anyway,
[34:49] Speaker 2: back to the movie The Godfather. Now you know how
[34:52] Speaker 2: the studio chief wakes up with a horsehead in the
[34:54] Speaker 2: bed with him and it was a signal that the
[34:56] Speaker 2: studio chief needs to hire Johnny Fontaine for a new movie. Well,
[35:00] Speaker 2: it's the moment when the Godfather famously makes him an
[35:03] Speaker 2: offer he can't refuse. So the horse head is the
[35:06] Speaker 2: threat that didn't actually happen in real life, but it
[35:08] Speaker 2: dramatizes how Sinatra gets back into Hollywood because the mafia
[35:12] Speaker 2: finesses it for him. The important point is he gets
[35:15] Speaker 2: back into Hollywood in fifty three and the movie he
[35:18] Speaker 2: stars in is called From Here to Eternity, and it's
[35:21] Speaker 2: the major film of that year, wins all these Academy Awards,
[35:25] Speaker 2: and Sinatra does such a good job in the film
[35:27] Speaker 2: as a character Maggio, he wins an Academy Award for
[35:30] Speaker 2: the film. And this is obviously early in fifty four
[35:33] Speaker 2: because the Oscars of the next year. So in fifty three,
[35:36] Speaker 2: Sinatra also signs with a new recording label, Capitol Records,
[35:40] Speaker 2: which he starts making a lot of the records. People
[35:42] Speaker 2: think of him exactly right, So now in fifty four
[35:46] Speaker 2: he's back on top. Baby. So however, the rough years
[35:50] Speaker 2: have done a number on his ego you and his
[35:53] Speaker 2: easy charm, and it also has basically ruined his marriage
[35:56] Speaker 2: to Ava Gardner, which is why she wants to divorce him,
[35:59] Speaker 2: because he's a bummer and he's and she's the big star.
[36:02] Speaker 2: So his marriage David Gardner's coming apart, and being Sinatra,
[36:05] Speaker 2: he begs her to stay, but she didn't want to.
[36:07] Speaker 2: Even if Hollywood is now eager to re embrace Sinatra
[36:10] Speaker 2: and they can both be stars. Yeah, he's shown too
[36:13] Speaker 2: much of who he is to hers. She's like, I
[36:14] Speaker 2: just can't deal with this anymore. So, since she's already
[36:17] Speaker 2: seen the worst of him, she wants to know more
[36:19] Speaker 2: of it. Obviously, she's conflicted about this, as their Lake
[36:22] Speaker 2: Tahoe Bode adventure indicates. Now at this point, we're caught
[36:26] Speaker 2: up in time. Okay, we're back to fifty four. Now
[36:28] Speaker 2: you may be wondering, how does Howard Hughes come back
[36:30] Speaker 2: into this picture.
[36:31] Speaker 3: I am wondering such a thing.
[36:33] Speaker 2: It's another great questioning, I know. I'll just say it
[36:35] Speaker 2: comes down to two words. Las Vegas.
[36:38] Speaker 3: Well, yeah, makes sense.
[36:39] Speaker 2: Now. Even though his star is ascend it once again,
[36:41] Speaker 2: Sinatra doesn't turn his back on his mafia friends or
[36:44] Speaker 2: their little gambling oasis into the desert. He'd learned the
[36:47] Speaker 2: lesson that Hollywood, the recruding industry, they can be fickle,
[36:51] Speaker 2: not like his mafia friends who had his back when
[36:53] Speaker 2: he was down. So he stays loyal to them. He
[36:55] Speaker 2: helps them build Las Vegas into a top destination in
[36:58] Speaker 2: the fifties, invites his famous friends to join him. This
[37:02] Speaker 2: leads to the creation of the rat Pack era. Oh right, now,
[37:06] Speaker 2: did you know that the rat pack originally referred to
[37:08] Speaker 2: Humphrey Bogart's regular poker game.
[37:11] Speaker 3: Yes, I did, I thought you did.
[37:13] Speaker 2: Do you know who gave him the.
[37:14] Speaker 3: Name that I don't know?
[37:15] Speaker 2: His much younger wife, Lauren Bacall.
[37:18] Speaker 3: Really, she's the one.
[37:19] Speaker 2: She came home one day she saw her husband and
[37:22] Speaker 2: his famous friends playing poker yet again, and she called
[37:25] Speaker 2: them this rat pack. Oh you see your little rat
[37:27] Speaker 2: packs together? So it was like an insult.
[37:30] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[37:31] Speaker 2: But one of the regulars at Bogie's weekly poker game
[37:34] Speaker 2: is Frank Sinatra. So after Bogie passes away in the
[37:37] Speaker 2: early fifties, Sinatra inherits the name, and soon its being
[37:40] Speaker 2: used by the press to refer to him and his
[37:42] Speaker 2: famous friends like Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Junior. So anyway,
[37:46] Speaker 2: at the Sans Casino in Vegas, that's where the rat
[37:49] Speaker 2: Pack becomes synonymous with cool, right, Yeah, In all, during
[37:52] Speaker 2: the fifties, Vegas becomes synonymous with Sinatra and the rat Pack,
[37:56] Speaker 2: and that's how Vegas becomes the place to be By
[37:59] Speaker 2: the time get around to the early sixties and they're
[38:01] Speaker 2: making like Ocean's eleven. So they'd put the time in
[38:04] Speaker 2: during the fifties. So by the middle of that decade
[38:07] Speaker 2: of the sixties, it's now become this highly profitable. The casinos,
[38:11] Speaker 2: the real estate, that's all highly valuable. And that's why
[38:14] Speaker 2: I would say that Sinatra built Las Vegas. He didn't obviously,
[38:18] Speaker 2: but you know, yeah, but made Vegas cool and value.
[38:21] Speaker 3: We wouldn't have what it was without him, exactly.
[38:24] Speaker 2: So this is what brings Howard Hughes to the desert
[38:27] Speaker 2: to see what's what and what does he have?
[38:28] Speaker 4: We know he has money.
[38:31] Speaker 2: So this leads to the next chapter in the Frank
[38:34] Speaker 2: Sinatra Versus Howard Hughes love rivalry. For now, though, let's
[38:37] Speaker 2: take a short break, and after these messages we will
[38:39] Speaker 2: get to round three.
[38:41] Speaker 4: Yeah we're back, Elizabeth, Yes we are.
[39:03] Speaker 2: Now you're ready to hit the next round of Frank
[39:05] Speaker 2: Sinatra versus Howard.
[39:06] Speaker 3: Here, Oh you better believe it?
[39:08] Speaker 2: Good, good now, But first though, catch back up with
[39:12] Speaker 2: Ava Gardner. What's she doing at all this time? So
[39:16] Speaker 2: by the start of the nineteen sixties, she's moved on
[39:18] Speaker 2: from both men. Their little love triangle is basically broken up,
[39:21] Speaker 2: yet both men still have this soft spot for her.
[39:24] Speaker 3: What about the Matador?
[39:26] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, he's long, he's long. Ah yeah, But like,
[39:28] Speaker 2: why are they still so hard up for Ava Gardner
[39:30] Speaker 2: Because Elizabeth, she's Ava Gardener.
[39:33] Speaker 3: Yeah, there's that, there's that little detail.
[39:35] Speaker 2: Meanwhile, at the same time, she's cozying up to Fidel Castro,
[39:42] Speaker 2: like justin Trudeau's mom. Yeah. Basically, So, as you know,
[39:47] Speaker 2: the Cuban Revolution ends on New Year's Eve nineteen fifty eight,
[39:50] Speaker 2: and so on January first, nineteen fifty nine, Fidel Castro
[39:54] Speaker 2: and Jacovara and their band of rebels march into Havana,
[39:58] Speaker 2: which is also dramatized in the Guy Universe, sits in
[40:02] Speaker 2: the sequel Godfather Part two.
[40:03] Speaker 4: Yeah, anyway, Godfather.
[40:06] Speaker 2: Later that same year, fifty nine, Ava Gardner travels to
[40:10] Speaker 2: Cuba to meet Fidel Castro because you see, in fifty nine,
[40:13] Speaker 2: the Cuban Revolution had yet to commit to communism. It
[40:16] Speaker 2: was actually trying to make an appeal to the United
[40:18] Speaker 2: States to back their play, which means it was still
[40:21] Speaker 2: cool for famous Americans to visit this new revolutionary state.
[40:25] Speaker 2: And so that's what Ava Gardner does because she's have
[40:27] Speaker 2: a gardener, and she does whatever the hellse she wants
[40:29] Speaker 2: to do. Yeah, so the story goes. Ava Gardner meets
[40:32] Speaker 2: up with Fidel and Shay at the Havanah Hilton, which
[40:34] Speaker 2: is where they have like their office on the penthouse,
[40:37] Speaker 2: and she and Fidel hit it off just like Sinatra
[40:41] Speaker 2: and Howard Hughes. Fidel Castro was also charmed by her,
[40:44] Speaker 2: and for a moment it seems like there's gonna be
[40:46] Speaker 2: a new fourth member in their love triangle. Oh no,
[40:49] Speaker 2: Castro squire's Ava Gardner around Havana. He's this potent and
[40:53] Speaker 2: for some a romantic figure, and she's taken with him.
[40:56] Speaker 3: She's like, is there anywhere we can go to just
[40:58] Speaker 3: shoot up a small dist He's.
[41:01] Speaker 2: Like, I've got to point at one. So one account
[41:04] Speaker 2: from her biographer Li sever in the book Ava Gardner
[41:07] Speaker 2: Love is Nothing quote, they sat on the balcony overlooking
[41:11] Speaker 2: the whole city, drank Kuba libres, and Castro told her
[41:15] Speaker 2: about the revolution and his dream of a prosperous and
[41:18] Speaker 2: equitable future for his nation. So as Ava swoons over
[41:22] Speaker 2: Fidel Castro the way the Bobby Soxers used to swoon
[41:25] Speaker 2: over her ex husband Sinatra there's just one thing that
[41:28] Speaker 2: stands in their way. And it wasn't Howard Hughes the CIA. No,
[41:32] Speaker 2: not even the CIA. It's Fidel's translator who was also
[41:36] Speaker 2: his mistress. No, a woman named Marita Lorenz.
[41:40] Speaker 3: Oh I would her translations must have been amazing.
[41:43] Speaker 2: Completely and so she's sea boom. But Fidel speaks English
[41:46] Speaker 2: enough that he understands, Yeah, he doesn't really need the translator,
[41:49] Speaker 2: but she is his translator, so to basically translate him
[41:53] Speaker 2: to the people who don't speak Spanish, because to.
[41:55] Speaker 3: Speak I think you're a cow and you should go home.
[42:04] Speaker 2: So this is Marita Lorenz. She sees what's going down
[42:07] Speaker 2: and she's determined to put a stop to it, right,
[42:09] Speaker 2: so she confronts have a Gardener in the lobby of
[42:12] Speaker 2: the Havannah Hilton and tells this big Hollywood star to
[42:15] Speaker 2: stay away from her. Man now drunk on Kuba Libres,
[42:18] Speaker 2: have a Gardener calls the translator a little oh yeah,
[42:22] Speaker 2: I told you dirt beyond the ears accuses her of
[42:26] Speaker 2: trying to keep Fidel from her. So the scene gets ugly,
[42:30] Speaker 2: like a gardner slaps Mariita Lorenz in the face, and
[42:34] Speaker 2: apparently it's a loud enough, like violent enough slap that
[42:37] Speaker 2: one of Fiddel's bodyguards draws his gun. Yeah, and and
[42:41] Speaker 2: then yeah, seriously, like perhaps this drunk Hollywood star is
[42:44] Speaker 2: actually an assassin sent by the American They don't know.
[42:48] Speaker 2: I mean, it's not above the CIA exactly. Anyway, So
[42:51] Speaker 2: Bedel sees the trouble that this jealousy is causing and
[42:54] Speaker 2: he decides he has a nation to run. Come on,
[42:58] Speaker 2: So Fidel tells Ava adios, and that was that. At
[43:05] Speaker 2: this point, let's tip back to Las Vegas. Now that
[43:08] Speaker 2: we know what Ava Gardner is doing, catch back, check
[43:11] Speaker 2: in with Sinatra and Howard Hughes. As I told you,
[43:14] Speaker 2: by the early sixties, Sinatra and his rat pack buddies,
[43:16] Speaker 2: they've made Vegas cool. They've made it the hottest, most
[43:19] Speaker 2: glamorous night spot in America. And they also made Vegas
[43:22] Speaker 2: like obviously very lucrative and valuable. So Howard Hughes, who
[43:26] Speaker 2: is now a recluse, is also still one of the
[43:28] Speaker 2: richest men of in America. He's essentially a billionaire, one
[43:31] Speaker 2: of the first billionaires. Yeah, I think if he may
[43:33] Speaker 2: even be the first, I don't know. But he decides
[43:35] Speaker 2: to see what he can do to buy a piece
[43:37] Speaker 2: of Vegas. But everyone knows Vegas is Sinatra's town, right,
[43:41] Speaker 2: So this guarantees there's gonna be fireworks if and when
[43:44] Speaker 2: Howard Hughes tries to grab what's Sinatra's again. So they're
[43:48] Speaker 2: both still in love with Ava Gardner and that that
[43:50] Speaker 2: is still a simmering tension underneath all what they're doing.
[43:53] Speaker 3: Howard's like sending boxes of fingernails here, Mason jarz y'arin
[44:00] Speaker 3: keep thinks.
[44:02] Speaker 2: So fast forward to sixty seven. Frank Sinatra has his
[44:06] Speaker 2: regular residency at the Sands Casino. Twice a year he's
[44:09] Speaker 2: there and whenever Ava Gardener's in town, he invites her
[44:12] Speaker 2: to come see him, typically after his show, where they
[44:14] Speaker 2: can be alone. The trouble is, so does the reclusive
[44:18] Speaker 2: Howard Hughes. In fact, there are times when both men
[44:20] Speaker 2: are staying at the Sands and both men are waiting
[44:23] Speaker 2: and hoping that Ava Garden will come to see them.
[44:25] Speaker 3: Wow.
[44:26] Speaker 2: Yes, that's what I'm telling you, Like they burn for
[44:28] Speaker 2: her for a long wow. And also both men are
[44:31] Speaker 2: very well aware of the other and his ongoing affections
[44:33] Speaker 2: for Ava, So they're still competing against each other. Yeah, anyway,
[44:37] Speaker 2: sixty seven, Guess who buys the Sands casino.
[44:40] Speaker 3: Howard Hughes yea.
[44:42] Speaker 2: As Time Magazine reported and it's September twenty second, nineteen
[44:46] Speaker 2: sixty seven edition, Howard Hughes sixty one has quietly been
[44:49] Speaker 2: making news of his own picking up properties around Las Vegas.
[44:53] Speaker 2: He has, in addition to the Sands and desert In,
[44:55] Speaker 2: bought Alamo Airways and the Crupp ranch in Red Rock Canyon,
[44:59] Speaker 2: Hughes are already owned thirty thousand acres of Nevada land.
[45:03] Speaker 2: Why the intensive interest in Las Vegas? Primarily it is
[45:07] Speaker 2: because Nevada has no income tax, a natural draw to Hughes,
[45:11] Speaker 2: whose net worth is over a billion. Yeah, I wanted
[45:17] Speaker 2: to bring it back for you, exactly. So there obviously
[45:20] Speaker 2: is another intensive interest in Las Vegas. And why he
[45:23] Speaker 2: wants to buy it. I think he wants to buy
[45:26] Speaker 2: Sinatra's town. Oh yeah, all right, because you notice that
[45:28] Speaker 2: Howard Hughes buys the desert In, then he buys the Sands,
[45:32] Speaker 2: the two places associated with Sinatras exactly. So at this point,
[45:36] Speaker 2: the rap Pack they still have their regular super popular
[45:38] Speaker 2: nightclub style shows. They're popping in ring A Ding Dinging
[45:41] Speaker 2: at each other, right, yeah, and it sure seems like
[45:43] Speaker 2: it's only a matter of time until these two men
[45:45] Speaker 2: are going to have a Western style showdown at the Sands.
[45:49] Speaker 2: And keep in mind, Sinatra is never afraid of a fight,
[45:52] Speaker 2: literal or figurative. So there's this one time I found
[45:56] Speaker 2: researching this when a man in Las Vegas was heckling
[45:58] Speaker 2: and insulting Judy Garland's daughter, Liza Minelli. The reason why
[46:02] Speaker 2: I say her daughter is at the time, she was
[46:04] Speaker 2: twelve years old and Judy invites Liza Minelly onto the
[46:08] Speaker 2: stage to sing with her, to perform a song. Right,
[46:10] Speaker 2: this is like before she's really done anything this.
[46:13] Speaker 4: My daughter's like some blue ivy stuff, exactly.
[46:15] Speaker 2: Totally blue ivy. So Sinatra, here's this man insulting lives
[46:19] Speaker 2: of Manelli is as I said, twelve. So what does
[46:22] Speaker 2: Sinatra do. He follows the heckler out of the performance
[46:26] Speaker 2: space and waits outside the bathroom for the man to
[46:29] Speaker 2: come out, and when he does, Sinatra throws a left
[46:32] Speaker 2: right combo and drops the man.
[46:34] Speaker 3: I love that.
[46:35] Speaker 2: He's like, how dare you insulting? Yeah? Bum, So keep
[46:39] Speaker 2: in mind a decade or so earlier, he'd also taken
[46:42] Speaker 2: a gun out and hunted down Howard Hughes at the
[46:44] Speaker 2: nightclub on Sunset Strip. So what Sinatra could it do?
[46:47] Speaker 2: Now that Howard Hughes owns the Sands, it is clearly
[46:50] Speaker 2: making moves to buy Vegas ak his town. A fight
[46:54] Speaker 2: is guaranteed. So that is if the reclusive Howard Hughes
[46:58] Speaker 2: ever managedes to emerge from his via sweet So what happens?
[47:02] Speaker 2: Great question.
[47:04] Speaker 3: I love when I asked these question.
[47:05] Speaker 2: Top of your game. So at this point, if you've
[47:08] Speaker 2: heard of the Calniva Casino, you know the one, right, Yeah.
[47:11] Speaker 3: We talked about that in an episode. Where was it
[47:14] Speaker 3: the abduction?
[47:15] Speaker 2: Yes, exactly, Yeah, but I've been out, you've been, so
[47:19] Speaker 2: you personally know it.
[47:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, I know where it is.
[47:20] Speaker 2: Yeah, So when you picture that place, it's the casino
[47:23] Speaker 2: that was located at Lake Tahoe right on the California
[47:25] Speaker 2: Nevada border, thus the name cal Niva, which, as you
[47:29] Speaker 2: may know, also was featured in the Godfather.
[47:31] Speaker 4: That's raight, so bringing it back.
[47:33] Speaker 3: I love Lake Tahoe, by the way, Oh, you and
[47:35] Speaker 3: I both so many people go up there. Now That's
[47:38] Speaker 3: why I don't know.
[47:38] Speaker 2: It's hard to keep it blue and out.
[47:40] Speaker 3: It really is hard to keep it.
[47:41] Speaker 2: So that casino is one that Sinatra bought obviously, or
[47:45] Speaker 2: you know, as we've told in the past, and naturally
[47:47] Speaker 2: many people believed it was a front for his friends
[47:49] Speaker 2: in the mafia, since unlike them, Sinatra could own and
[47:53] Speaker 2: have a state approved license to own a casino. So,
[47:56] Speaker 2: according to the October fifteenth, nineteen sixty seven edition of
[47:59] Speaker 2: the The Fresno Bee, Sinatra paid approximately two hundred and
[48:04] Speaker 2: fifty thousand dollars for a twenty five percent interest in
[48:06] Speaker 2: Calniva Lodge, and it turned out to be a profitable
[48:09] Speaker 2: investment until nineteen sixty three, when the Nevada Gaming Commission
[48:13] Speaker 2: accused Sinatra of hosting Momo sam salvatore Giancana in Chalet
[48:19] Speaker 2: number fifty of the cal Niva. Sam Giancana is listed
[48:22] Speaker 2: by the Department of Justice as head of the Chicago
[48:24] Speaker 2: or Midwest branch of the Mafia.
[48:27] Speaker 3: So what a man can't go to the lake anymore.
[48:30] Speaker 2: He can't have your friends come by pie Zon.
[48:34] Speaker 3: Then that hit the Trai.
[48:37] Speaker 2: After all this, Sinatra is put in an awkward position.
[48:40] Speaker 2: Back to The Fresno b when Sinatra was asked to
[48:42] Speaker 2: explain his hosting of Giancana. He replied in gutter language
[48:46] Speaker 2: that he intended on his property to entertain anyone.
[48:49] Speaker 3: He felt like, hell yeah.
[48:51] Speaker 2: There's that Sinatra temper again, right anyway, his response does
[48:55] Speaker 2: not improve matters with the authorities. Back to the Fresno
[48:58] Speaker 2: b when subsequently the Gaming Commission filed a complaint against
[49:02] Speaker 2: Sinatra in an attempt to lift the gambling license it
[49:05] Speaker 2: had granted him in September of nineteen sixty. Sinatra, rather
[49:08] Speaker 2: than fight the complaint and exposed the extent of his
[49:11] Speaker 2: underworld relationships handed in his license. He not only sold
[49:15] Speaker 2: his gambling interest in Calneva, by then he owned more
[49:18] Speaker 2: than sixty three percent, but also had to sell the
[49:21] Speaker 2: nine points five hundred thousand dollars ownership he had in
[49:24] Speaker 2: the Sands hotel. So that's how Howard was able to
[49:27] Speaker 2: buy it and not buy it from Sinatra directly got it.
[49:31] Speaker 2: So in sixty seven, when Howard Hughes buys the casino outright,
[49:34] Speaker 2: it means Sinatra now works for his former love rival.
[49:37] Speaker 3: Yeah yeah, but.
[49:38] Speaker 2: At the time Sinatra did still own part of the Calneva,
[49:41] Speaker 2: the part that was the hotel, not the casino. In
[49:44] Speaker 2: the part but yeah, exactly so. Also, owning a hotel
[49:49] Speaker 2: not a casino is not nearly as lucrative.
[49:52] Speaker 3: Oh, definitely right.
[49:54] Speaker 2: So for reasons, Sinatra is becoming convinced that if Howard
[49:57] Speaker 2: Hughes wants him to keep singing at the Sands now
[49:59] Speaker 2: that he owns this, his billionaire friend needs to buy
[50:02] Speaker 2: out his interest in the Caliniva. He's just gonna make
[50:04] Speaker 2: it a sweetheart deal. So, according to the Fresno Beat,
[50:07] Speaker 2: one of Sinatra's entourage tells a reporter that quote. When
[50:11] Speaker 2: Frank booked himself into the Sands on August thirtieth, many
[50:14] Speaker 2: of us were sure that soon he would get Howard
[50:16] Speaker 2: Hughes to take Calneva off his hands. After all, what
[50:20] Speaker 2: does a million or two extra mean to Howard Hughes,
[50:22] Speaker 2: especially when a little thing like that can keep Frank happy.
[50:26] Speaker 2: Let's face it, Frank was such a large factor in
[50:28] Speaker 2: making the Sands a success. He brought Dean Martin there,
[50:31] Speaker 2: Sammy Davis Junior, Joey Bishop, Edie Gourmet, and Steve Lawrence,
[50:36] Speaker 2: plus all the high rollers their names attract. Surely Hughes
[50:39] Speaker 2: would recognize that fact and play ball with Frank. The
[50:43] Speaker 2: newspaper doesn't know the backstory, apparently, because there's a lot.
[50:46] Speaker 2: There's the one big reason why he would not play
[50:49] Speaker 2: ball with Frank Sinatra, and it's shaped just like Ava Gardner.
[50:52] Speaker 2: So Sinatra comes to the Sands looking for his casino
[50:55] Speaker 2: real estate deal and he plays his show ring a
[50:58] Speaker 2: ding ding sing along right then he calls up Howard
[51:01] Speaker 2: Hughes to talk business back to the Fresno Bee. As
[51:04] Speaker 2: a source tells of the reporter, Frank put in a
[51:06] Speaker 2: call to Howard Hughes. Frank, you know, is a proud guy.
[51:09] Speaker 2: And when Hughes refused even to acknowledge the call, Frank
[51:13] Speaker 2: got sore, but I mean sore.
[51:16] Speaker 3: So yeah, now.
[51:17] Speaker 2: We've got some real trouble bruin. To get Howard Hughes's attention,
[51:21] Speaker 2: Sinatra leaves Vegas during the Labor Day weekend, which is
[51:25] Speaker 2: a major money earner for the casinos.
[51:28] Speaker 3: Huge weekend.
[51:28] Speaker 2: Yeah. So after the weekend's over, Sinatra comes back to
[51:31] Speaker 2: the Sands. He does his usual thing. He starts gambling,
[51:34] Speaker 2: playing blackjack. He gets drunk as he's gambling. Then he
[51:37] Speaker 2: runs out of chips and he goes to the cashier's
[51:39] Speaker 2: cage to get more chips on his credit line, as
[51:42] Speaker 2: a Fresno Bee reports it quote, the cashier said no,
[51:45] Speaker 2: soap Frank at first thought he was kidding. The cashier
[51:48] Speaker 2: said nope, it was on the level. He'd gotten orders
[51:51] Speaker 2: from upstairs that Sinatra's markers henceforth would not be acceptable
[51:55] Speaker 2: to the new management. So Howard Hughes cut him off. Yeah,
[52:00] Speaker 2: now Howard is trying to embarrass Sinatra in Vegas. That's
[52:03] Speaker 2: just one move. Yeah, But Elizabeth, it's worse than that,
[52:06] Speaker 2: because the full story is Sinatra was in the casino partying,
[52:09] Speaker 2: gambling with some of the Apollo astronauts when he asked
[52:12] Speaker 2: to get the credit line and he gets denied. So
[52:15] Speaker 2: now he's got no money to like feed. Yeah, it's bad.
[52:17] Speaker 2: So to cover for his ego, Sinatra jokes at Howard Hughes,
[52:21] Speaker 2: rich as he is is still a tight one, but
[52:24] Speaker 2: you have to know that inwardly he's just burning with anger. Yeah,
[52:27] Speaker 2: So that goes down on Thursday. By Sunday night, Sinatra
[52:30] Speaker 2: is fuming mad. He's not giving up now he's looking
[52:33] Speaker 2: to do something about it. So while he's gambling, he
[52:36] Speaker 2: gets drunk. I'm talking real drunk, Jack Daniel's drunker. Then
[52:39] Speaker 2: he starts to give the pit boss a hard time.
[52:41] Speaker 2: He tells them they'll break both their legs.
[52:44] Speaker 3: Okay.
[52:45] Speaker 2: He also points out I built this hotel from a sandpile,
[52:48] Speaker 2: and he shouts in front of like stunned witnesses and onlookers,
[52:52] Speaker 2: and before I'm through, that's what it'll be again. So
[52:56] Speaker 2: this is when he goes looking for answers for why
[52:58] Speaker 2: his credit line was cut off. He hops on a
[53:00] Speaker 2: house phone. He has to speak to Carl Cohen, who
[53:03] Speaker 2: is the casino manager and actually used to own the
[53:06] Speaker 2: sand but he was a owner, so the call goes unanswered.
[53:09] Speaker 2: That pisses Sinatra off. He starts to lose it. He
[53:12] Speaker 2: has to speak to someone else. He knows he's again
[53:15] Speaker 2: no answer, So now he really no one's taking his calls.
[53:18] Speaker 2: He's losing it, right, So he tells the operator, you'd
[53:21] Speaker 2: better get him and tell him I will tear up
[53:23] Speaker 2: this place. So, hearing the disturbance, a security guard confronts him,
[53:29] Speaker 2: and Sinatra tells the security guard, you're pretty tough with
[53:32] Speaker 2: a gun onn't you well take that gun and shove
[53:34] Speaker 2: it up you. Yeah, he's mad and drunk, So at
[53:39] Speaker 2: this point Sinatra goes back up to his suite and
[53:42] Speaker 2: trashes it. Yeah, I'm talking like like Johnny Depp in
[53:45] Speaker 2: the nineties, trashing a hotel, trashing a hotel led Zeppelin.
[53:50] Speaker 2: I'm talking trashes it, right. But he's not satisfied, so
[53:53] Speaker 2: he goes back downstairs and demands to speak with Carl Cohen,
[53:57] Speaker 2: the casino manager. So five five am on News Now
[54:02] Speaker 2: Monday mornings. Yeah, Sinatra gets a hold of Cohen, who
[54:06] Speaker 2: agrees to talk with Sinatra. He tells him to meet
[54:08] Speaker 2: him in the hotel restaurant where he'll be having breakfast.
[54:11] Speaker 2: Sinatra goes downstairs and he meets the casino manager. He
[54:15] Speaker 2: strides up to the table where Cohen is eating and
[54:17] Speaker 2: demands to know why his marker is no longer good
[54:20] Speaker 2: at the casino. Yeah, like why his credit line's been canceled.
[54:23] Speaker 2: And Cohen tells him I don't know the hotel anymore.
[54:25] Speaker 2: Frank Sinatra says, what are you so nervous about? Huh?
[54:29] Speaker 2: And Cohen says he got out of bed for Frank,
[54:31] Speaker 2: and Sonatra repeats himself, what are you so nervous about? Huh? Now, Cohen,
[54:35] Speaker 2: whre's no pushover. This guy's been dealing with mobsters from
[54:38] Speaker 2: the jump. Oh yeah, he says, I'm not gonna listen
[54:40] Speaker 2: to this. He gets up to leave, and that's when
[54:43] Speaker 2: Sinatra dumps his breakfast on the man's lap. But not
[54:47] Speaker 2: only that, he scalds him with piping hot coffee. Oh no,
[54:51] Speaker 2: oh yeah, so that's over the line, right. The casino
[54:53] Speaker 2: manager pops up. He puts his full two hundred and
[54:56] Speaker 2: fifty pounds into one good right hand haymaker, and he
[55:00] Speaker 2: deck Sinatra. Elizabeth, I'm talking like a real heavyweight punch.
[55:04] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[55:04] Speaker 2: The blow knocks the caps off of Sinatra's two front teeth.
[55:07] Speaker 2: What yes. Frank is stunned, he's there is He's grabbing
[55:11] Speaker 2: his split lip. His blood is pouring over his hands.
[55:14] Speaker 2: Sinatra is like shouting at the casino manager, you broke
[55:17] Speaker 2: my teeth. I'll kill you, you son of him? All right. Now,
[55:21] Speaker 2: Sinatra's right hand man is this guy Jilly Rizzo, and
[55:25] Speaker 2: so he's there in the restaurant with Frank, and when
[55:27] Speaker 2: he sees what Sinatra get popped, Rizzo reaches into his
[55:31] Speaker 2: sport coat, presumably for a gun man, but a huge
[55:34] Speaker 2: security guard is standing right behind Jilly Rizzo and he
[55:37] Speaker 2: tells him remove your hand. Real slow, like because there
[55:41] Speaker 2: used to anybody involved in this scene. So Sinatra, though,
[55:45] Speaker 2: is not done. He grabs a chair and tries to
[55:48] Speaker 2: brain Cohen with the chair. He misses, and he hits
[55:52] Speaker 2: the second security guard, sending that man to the hospital
[55:55] Speaker 2: to get his head stitched together.
[55:57] Speaker 3: Isn't wildly swing in a chair?
[56:00] Speaker 2: Oh yeah?
[56:00] Speaker 3: And then Snatra got no front teeth, blood everywhere exactly.
[56:04] Speaker 2: So Snatra storms out as Jilly Rizzo's chasing him, going hey, wait, Frank, wait, wait, Frank,
[56:08] Speaker 2: Frank Frank. So Sinatra still not done at this point.
[56:13] Speaker 2: Steaming Sinatra hops in a golf cart he drives off.
[56:16] Speaker 3: That's a scene that is like because then it's like
[56:18] Speaker 3: he gets in and then likes this slow roll away.
[56:23] Speaker 2: So he there's these doors to the hotel, right the
[56:26] Speaker 2: glass doors. He drives the golf cart right into the
[56:29] Speaker 2: glass door, shattering it and just like apparently leaves it
[56:32] Speaker 2: parked there, and then he grabs his stuff from his suite,
[56:35] Speaker 2: catches a ride out to the airport, flies back to
[56:38] Speaker 2: Palm Springs. Okay, right, and this is where he gets
[56:41] Speaker 2: his private dentist who come out and meet him and
[56:43] Speaker 2: repair his broken teeth. So that's why we don't ever
[56:45] Speaker 2: see him with pictures without it, you know, with the
[56:47] Speaker 2: you know, missing his two front Yeah, just the cat.
[56:49] Speaker 3: That's the benefit of wealth and fame.
[56:51] Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Now at the time, the former private detective
[56:54] Speaker 2: and wannabe Fidel Castro assassin for the CIA. Yeah, Robert
[56:58] Speaker 2: Mayhew is now back where with Howard Hughes as the
[57:01] Speaker 2: chief executive for his Nevada operations. Oh boy, Yeah, so
[57:04] Speaker 2: he writes up a report of the events for the
[57:07] Speaker 2: reclusive Howard Hughes, and I quote. At six am today,
[57:10] Speaker 2: Sinatra appeared at the Sands, made one hell of a
[57:13] Speaker 2: scene and insisted on seeing Carl Cohen. He threatened to
[57:16] Speaker 2: kill anyone who got in his way, used a vile language,
[57:19] Speaker 2: and said he would beat up the telephone operators if
[57:21] Speaker 2: they did not connect him with Cohen, et cetera. In
[57:24] Speaker 2: an effort to calm the situation, Carl agreed to meet him.
[57:27] Speaker 2: Sinatra called Cohen every dirty name in the book, said
[57:30] Speaker 2: he was going to kill him, pushed a table over
[57:33] Speaker 2: on Carl, picked up a chair and attempted to hit
[57:35] Speaker 2: Carl over the head. Carl Duck took a pass at
[57:38] Speaker 2: Sinatra and floored him. So Elizabeth, you better believe the
[57:41] Speaker 2: reclusive Howard Hughes got to kick out a report.
[57:44] Speaker 3: His like spirit left his body for a little bit.
[57:47] Speaker 3: He was like, this is amazing.
[57:48] Speaker 2: So as the FRISD would be summed it all up. Quote.
[57:51] Speaker 2: The entire fault, of course, can be attributed to Howard Hughes.
[57:54] Speaker 2: He is just not interested in keeping his stars happy.
[57:58] Speaker 3: Oh, or rather.
[57:59] Speaker 2: He was I'm not interested in keeping one very specific
[58:02] Speaker 2: star happy. One Francis Albert Sinatra. So there's obviously one
[58:06] Speaker 2: obvious reason have a gardener, right, So this fight marks
[58:10] Speaker 2: the end of Sinatra's sixteen year run at the Sands.
[58:13] Speaker 2: As the Miami Herald reported in it's September thirteenth, nineteen
[58:17] Speaker 2: sixty seven edition, a Sinatras spokesman announced the crooner had
[58:21] Speaker 2: switched his allegiance through the medium of a three year
[58:24] Speaker 2: contract to Caesar's Palace, a rival pleasure dome down the strip.
[58:29] Speaker 3: Caesar's years in.
[58:31] Speaker 2: A pleasure dome.
[58:32] Speaker 3: It is a pleasure dome.
[58:33] Speaker 2: Now at this point, Vegas is never the same after this, Elizabeth,
[58:37] Speaker 2: you could say that that fight marks the end of
[58:39] Speaker 2: the rat pack era in Las Vegas. All for one
[58:42] Speaker 2: simple reason and the two very jealous men who wanted
[58:47] Speaker 2: to possess her. So what's our ridiculous takeaway here? Oh?
[58:51] Speaker 3: Ava, you know she's no ethel Merman, she's no Rosemary Clooney,
[58:57] Speaker 3: but you know she'll she'll do well.
[58:59] Speaker 2: I would say another comparison would be Marilyn Monroe and
[59:03] Speaker 2: the Kennedys. You know, totally because also you get Sandy
[59:06] Speaker 2: and Kana in that story too. Oh yeah, it's a
[59:10] Speaker 2: familiar to you may need to tell that one. So
[59:15] Speaker 2: you in the mood for a talkback?
[59:16] Speaker 3: I certainly wait. What's your ridiculous takeaway? You don't get
[59:20] Speaker 3: off so easy, oh mine.
[59:22] Speaker 2: You never mess with Frank Sinatra unless you're ready to
[59:25] Speaker 2: duck him.
[59:25] Speaker 3: Oh I have to agree with that.
[59:27] Speaker 2: I got nothing. That's all I got for you. But
[59:29] Speaker 2: I am in the mood for talkback, just to wash
[59:31] Speaker 2: this story down. Oh my god, I let you.
[59:46] Speaker 3: Guys.
[59:46] Speaker 5: Why did I just hear my voice on a fire
[59:49] Speaker 5: fest and you didn't even get to hear the end
[59:51] Speaker 5: of the Orchid story. I'm quite shocked. You guys must
[59:55] Speaker 5: not get a lot of these in. But the end
[59:58] Speaker 5: of the Orchid story was I got to work it
[1:00:03] Speaker 5: in because the website crashed and he said, well, just
[1:00:09] Speaker 5: don't plant it in the ground, which I couldn't do anyways,
[1:00:11] Speaker 5: because orchids are not known for growing in Canada.
[1:00:15] Speaker 3: Is again, well, we wait back the line to you,
[1:00:24] Speaker 3: but thank you for that.
[1:00:26] Speaker 2: And unfortunately we do get a lot of these, so
[1:00:29] Speaker 2: we probably in our email inbox it got lost.
[1:00:31] Speaker 3: I don't know, no, I just think you know, there's
[1:00:33] Speaker 3: just you got to go to the back of the line.
[1:00:35] Speaker 3: You can get caught off you.
[1:00:37] Speaker 2: Ye start over again. So uh, there you go. If
[1:00:42] Speaker 2: that was amazing, I'm glad you enjoyed that.
[1:00:44] Speaker 3: Thank you.
[1:00:45] Speaker 2: As always, you can find us online at Ridiculous Crime
[1:00:47] Speaker 2: on Blue Sky, Instagram, and uh obviously we love your talkback,
[1:00:52] Speaker 2: so please go to the iHeart app download it, record
[1:00:55] Speaker 2: a talk back and maybe you get to hear your
[1:00:57] Speaker 2: voice you please, we'd like to hear it, and please
[1:00:59] Speaker 2: also send a emails are Ridiculous Crime at gmail dot com.
[1:01:03] Speaker 2: We're thinking about doing a mail bag episode, so we'd
[1:01:05] Speaker 2: love to hear your crime confessions or stories from your
[1:01:09] Speaker 2: hometown that don't involve you and family members. Whatever you got.
[1:01:13] Speaker 2: And also we have our account Ridiculous Crime Pod on YouTube.
[1:01:16] Speaker 2: Go check that out. It's got great animations, and we
[1:01:18] Speaker 2: have the website Ridiculous Crime dot com, which has a
[1:01:23] Speaker 2: merch and apparently was a vote nominated for the best
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: sweater for Sweater Weather in twenty twenty.
[1:01:31] Speaker 3: So I know you can only get on the website
[1:01:33] Speaker 3: now with a retinal scan.
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: I did not. Yeah, I couldn't get past the age verifications.
[1:01:40] Speaker 3: You have to be eighty seven years old. Yeah, it's
[1:01:42] Speaker 3: pretty cool.
[1:01:44] Speaker 2: So there you go, Thank you for listening, and hey,
[1:01:46] Speaker 2: we will catch you next crime. Ridiculous Crime is hosted
[1:01:55] Speaker 2: by Elizabeth Utton and Zarin Brunette, produced and edited by
[1:01:58] Speaker 2: Dean Martin's Ego and Easy Sense of Chill aka Dave Cousta,
[1:02:03] Speaker 2: and starring Annalise Rucker as Judith the Matador. Research is
[1:02:07] Speaker 2: by Sammy Davis Junior's Sense of Rhythm aka Marissa Brown
[1:02:10] Speaker 2: and Jabbari Davis. Our theme song is by Frank Sinatra's
[1:02:14] Speaker 2: musical ego aka Thomas Lee and Travis Dutton. The host
[1:02:18] Speaker 2: wardrobe provided by Botany five hundred. Guest hair makeup by
[1:02:21] Speaker 2: Sparkleshot and Mister Andre. Executive producers are Howard Hughes his
[1:02:25] Speaker 2: co pilots of his Spruce Goose Ben Bolan and Noel Brown.
[1:02:37] Speaker 3: Why Say It one more time?
[1:02:42] Speaker 1: Ridiculous Crime is a production of iHeartRadio four more podcasts.
[1:02:46] Speaker 1: My heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or
[1:02:49] Speaker 1: wherever you listen to your favorite shows.

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